NZN pedals innovation

it was well in the pipeline by then. We’ve been developing most of it in a closed-off space within a tent.”

With yesterday marking 100 days to the opening race of the America’s Cup qualifiers, Shoebridge doubts even their wealthiest opponent, defender Oracle Team USA, will be able to replicate the system.

“Although it looks like just a straightforward bike seat and pedals, it’s actually a very complicated system to turn that into hydraulic power. Knowing how long it has taken us to develop it into a real usable system, there’s not a lot of time left [for another team to develop it].”

The cycle grinding system may be the most obvious development on the catamaran, which has been christened New Zealand Aotearoa, but skipper Glenn Ashby insists it is not the most significant. The real magic, Ashby said, lies in the sophisticated control systems that ensure stable and continuous flight around the race course.

“Although the cycling has taken a fair bit of the attention, it’s really just another way of powering the boat. There’s a lot of other things that have to come together for it all to work.”

The 50-page design guidelines for the America’s Cup Class (ACC) catamarans required certain elements of the boat be one-design, including the hulls, beams, central pod and wing shape.

That meant the design effort was focused on the control systems and daggerboards, where the rules allow more flexibility.

The end result is what Team New Zealand chief executive Grant Dalton has described as the most innovative and powerful technology seen in the America’s Cup.

“The boats in San Francisco look like they are absolutely from the Dark Ages. The range of boats that are going in the water now from both the challengers and the defender are the most technologically advanced boats that have ever been launched,” he said.

The emphasis of the campaign now moves from inside the confines of the boat shed to the open water of the Hauraki Gulf, led by Ashby. The team has a month of intensive training in Auckland before suspending the test programme and packing up the boat for Bermuda, where they will have another six weeks of training before racing starts on May 27.